First Street Getting Attention

Many drivers will use First Street, as an alternative to Second, but eventually the wear and tear catches up with the road surface, which is why city engineers want to fix some of the major problems the road has for the first time since it's construction.

Casper Street and Traffic Manager Shad Rodgers says, "I’d say it is one of the busier ones. It's an alternative route to get downtown from Scond Street."

However, while driving down First, you may notice it’s not the most enjoyable ride. "The ride-ability of the street is poor right now. I mean it's rutted, it's potholed. It's basically falling apart," Rodgers said.

The City of Casper plans to use the city’s one-cent funds to address many of the street’s problems. Assistant Public Services Director Peter Meyers says, "Both for the water line replacement and for the surface work the concrete and the asphalt, this is the kind of thing we couldn't do without the one-cent."

Over the years, the street has gone through minor repairs for pot holes and things of that nature, but nothing to this caliber. "This is the majority of street repair that gets the ride ability back into the grade we want it to be," Rodger said.

This is considered a major project, which means temporary road closures are possible through its construction. "At the very least there will be lane closures and it's going to be, it'll slow things down a bit on first street there's no question about that an inevitable side effect of construction," Meyers said.

The construction will take place from Beverly all the way down to the First Street and Yellowstone Intersection; everything past that is not maintained by the city. "First Street from US Yellowstone actually to Poplar belongs to WYDOT. We do maintain the snow part of it, as far as plowing the streets, but as actual repair on the street, no we don't do anything like that on there," Rodgers said.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, Casper City Council approved the one-hundred thousand dollar engineering project. However, the overall cost of all the repairs is upwards of one-and-a-half million.

Online Public Information File

Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or fccinfo@fcc.gov.